’5 Days of War’: Review Revue

While the world was watching the 11,028 athletes compete in the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, people on both sides of the Russian-Georgian war were being killed. Director Renny Harlin, known for “Die Hard” and “Cliffhanger,” shot “5 Days of War” from the Georgian perspective on location in the former Russian territory. The 113-minute action drama stars Val Kilmer, Rupert Friend and Andy Garcia.

Read some reviews here.

“The film is littered with washed-up stars, in fact, presumably cast because the producers thought their message would reach Americans only if they could get some famous people involved. Sadly, that may be true in this case. But “5 Days of War” suffers all the failings of Hollywoodization without capturing the compelling pathos its subject deserves.” [John DeFore, Washington Post]

“The low-budget movie, set during Russia’s 2008 invasion of Georgia, is neither innovative nor profound, but it is kinetic, visceral and sometimes moving…5 Days of War is not the definitive comment on the Russia-Georgia conflict, but it does bring the war part of the way home.” [Mark Jekins, NPR]

With Kathryn Bigelow’s “The Hurt Locker” and other films that have straddled the hybrid docu-feature approach to our various Mideast calamities, auds have come to expect a stripped-down authenticity in war films. That’s one reason why “5 Days of War” seems so tone deaf…”5 Days of War” is a movie with its heart in the right place but a fatal taste for cheese: Every time it has you by the nerve endings, it does something — a slo-mo death, a sappily sentimental line, an ill-timed strain of Trevor Rabin’s too obvious score — to let you go.” [John Anderson, Variety]

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